


caught cold

by menocchio



Series: in the cave [2]
Category: Black Panther (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Erik is raised in Wakanda, Gen, Grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 09:47:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13924584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/menocchio/pseuds/menocchio
Summary: If there was ever a day for his anger – and he's been told countless times there is not – today is it.





	caught cold

If there was ever a day for his anger – and he's been told countless times there is not – today is it.

King T'Chaka had died unexpectedly in the lap of the international community. It was a senseless death that caused a political mess everywhere but here at home, and hardly the way he would've preferred to see him go.

N'Jadaka isn't alone in his impatience for the pageantry going on outside the cave. His Jabari brothers know there hasn't been a genuine challenge for the throne in four generations and aren't shy about voicing their contempt. This display is exactly the sort of languid complacence that reinforces every one of their long-held opinions about the rest of the country.

The shining unbroken chain of succession, the solemnity, the lie – it is bought by all, the royal family included, but ultimately it is only really sold by one.

And so when his cousin's aircraft arrives, everyone looks to it but Erik, who isn't ready to stop watching Zuri.

***

The darkness of the closet is comforting like ice on a bruise – a different flavor of painful, but better than it otherwise would be.

A small band of light at the bottom of the door is all he can see of the room that used to be his living room. Inside the closet, though, everything still smells familiar. If he lifts his face from his knees, the long heavy sleeve of his dad's jacket brushes the back of his head. It's still home inside the closet.

He hadn't been allowed to touch his dad, didn't even get close to him before James was getting in his way, blocking his view.

“N'Jadaka,” says a voice from the other side of the door. The man in the Panther suit has returned. After a long second he tries again: “...Erik. You must come out from there. We need to leave this place.”

 _This place_.

Erik's never even been further east than the 5. He doesn't answer.

The Panther then says something in his dad's secret language, and Uncle James replies with more of the same. Erik thought he'd been doing well with his evening lessons, but he doesn't understand a single word. He holds his knees tighter to his chest.

“Erik.” James now. “I'm going to open the door.”

Arguing requires speaking, and Erik finds he can't do that. And since there's no lock on the inside of the closet, there isn't anything he can do but sit there, useless, as the knob turns and the doors swings open.

He looks up the tall silhouetted figures, refusing to blink even as his eyes burn a little from the sudden bright light from the room. In the lower periphery of his vision, he can see they haven't moved his dad. The burning gets worse.

“We must go,” the Panther says again.

Erik jumps up and he's finally shouting. “You keep _saying_ that. But where? What am I supposed to – ?” But just as quickly as it came, his voice leaves him because _what is he going to do now?_

He could go stay with Lucas, but his mom will probably call him in, and then he'll end up in the _system_ – something he's never really understood but has always instinctively understood is scary. Jack from three floors down has been in the system, and he's _messed up._

But before his thoughts can spiral out of control and create more terrifying possibilities, James tells him, “We're going home, Erik. To Wakanda. And we're bringing you with us.”

–

Erik goes to his bedside table and quickly grabs the important stuff – his dad's ring, the polaroid of his mom. His walkman. He carefully tucks the first two safely down the side of his sock.

“Whatever it is you're thinking of bringing, you won't need it,” James says from the doorway. His eyes are casing the room, but whatever he sees must not be to his liking because he seems almost angry. If Erik had the energy, he'd wonder why he was acting this way when he's seen the room a thousand times.

He puts the walkman in his front pocket and turns to face him. They stare at each silently like that for a few moments. James looks away first.

He turns to go. “Come.”

“What about my dad?” asks Erik, not moving.

James hesitates and looks back at him. “King T'Chaka has said we cannot take him. But I will leave a tip with the building manager. He won't be here long.”

“No.” Erik stands straight. “He _told_ me. You guys have a necro – a city of the dead, or something. Right? And that's where you bury people?”

“King T'Chaka said we cannot take him,” James repeats.

Neither of them are looking over at his dad. They're acting like he's not even in the room.

Erik's hands are shaking, so he balls them into fists and buries them in the pocket of his hoodie. “You don't even sound like you anymore. Was it all a lie?”

James's expression goes cold. “It was a lie like your father's life here was a lie. Is that what you want to hear?”

Erik's eyes burn again, and he retreats into silence.

–

He is led to the roof, which he's always wanted to go on but could never find a way to break into. There, he boards a spaceship.

That's what it looks like – a spaceship. It's sleek and spare, and the controls don't look like anything Erik's ever seen in movies. Any other day and he'd be inspecting every inch and asking the weird lady in the red outfit if the ship could actually go into space. He'd be pressing his face against the windows to watch it take off over his building (the highest up he's ever been was City Hall on a field trip during its renovation, but he couldn't exactly seen his neighborhood from there).

What he does instead is sit silently in a corner, trying to appear as small as possible. It's not until the ship starts to rise up and the sky outside the window starts to shift that he is struck by a sudden terrible panic.

What is he _doing_? His dad is back in his apartment, just lying there all alone. If Erik leaves him now, he might never find him again, won't be able to visit him the way he visits his mama.

“Please,” he says, standing up and facing the lady in red. “We have to go back. We can't leave him there.”

She stares straight ahead like she doesn't even hear him. He turns to the Panther, who meets his eyes with an implacable frown that makes something inside Erik quake a little.

He steps forward anyway. “Why can't we take him with us?”

“It's too complicated for you to understand,” James says from his seat beside the king. “But don't worry, Erik. He'll be taken care of.”

“I don't believe you!” he shouts, and the sudden escalation in noise seems to hit all the adults almost like a physical blow. “Why are you _doing_ this? He was your  _friend_ – ”

He doesn't know what happens next, only that he's waking up on a bench seat along the wall.

They're still in the spaceship, but the lights have been dimmed. Outside the window, the sky is lightening and revealing a floor of gunmetal grey clouds below the ship. It's clearly been hours.

Erik shakes his head and lifts a hand to rub the back of his neck. He can't feel the kind of lingering soreness he gets when he has his shots, but he knows he was drugged somehow. Looks like the women in red didn't like anyone mouthing off to their king.

He peers through the dim lighting but can't make out James's figure. The king is still in his seat, but he isn't moving. His face is tipped back into shadows. Erik thinks he might be asleep.

Erik shuffles around so his back is to the rest of the room. He lets his shoulders curve inward and reaches down to pull the ring on its chain out from his hiding place.

He runs his fingers over its etched sides and mulls over the weight of it. Vibranium, his dad had called it? Blinking back stupid tears, he undoes the clasp on the chain and slides the ring off. Numb and unthinking, he puts it on.

The ring doesn't fit.

The metal band slip-slides around his finger, and generally doesn't look or feel like it belongs there at all. Erik keeps it on for a few minutes anyway, hoping – he doesn't know. That it will start to feel more right? That he'll feel something of his dad? Instead he is only uncomfortably aware of his current state – just an orphan kid huddled in a corner, a kid who left his dad behind.

Eventually, worried about losing it, he puts the ring back on its chain and hides the whole business under the worn cotton of his hoodie.

He shifts back around on the bench, wishing he had a pillow, but freezes when he sees the king was not asleep after all. He has an elbow on one armrest, head resting in hand, and is watching Erik from across the room.

He doesn't know if the king saw the ring, and if he'll try to take it away if he did. Erik warily lowers himself back down to the bench and curls on his side, facing him.

Neither of them speak, but neither of them sleeps either. 


End file.
